I suspect the elevation here is a factor, in addition to being inland.

A few years ago there was a gigantic typhoon coming off of the Gulf of Tonkin and moving north into Honghe. From eyeballing the satellite maps, it seemed to be coming like a freight train with an ETA in about 6 hours. So I headed out to stock up on supplies, and then hunkered down at home to wait... and wait...

And the storm just seemed to stall out about 100 miles south of Kunming, I suppose from bashing itself against the mountain ranges. I think a day or two later we got some heavy rain, but nothing that out of the ordinary. I have seen things play out similarly a time or two since then.

@Miyamoto Musashi: Check my registration date. Although it's true I only recently began posting more actively, GoKunming has been a valuable resource to me for years. I would like to see it continue to exist.

Like I said, fool's errand. Enough feeding the troll, I'm out of here.

Miyamoto, this is probably a fool's errand, but you keep claiming that you're not a troll or an agent provocateur, so I will take you at your word and make one attempt to try to explain what what I think you're missing.

This. is. China.

Not Denmark.

It's not that people want to "ignore" issues here, as you say. Rather, it is that the standard ways of engaging with issues in our home countries are inoperative here.

To start off with, locals are very prickly about criticism from foreigners and have been known to take various kinds of action in response to perceived offenses. So the sort of comments you are making on these forums are simply reckless.

And not just for you. tigertiger mentioned the risks to this website. Furthermore, if you stir things up enough to draw attention and are identified, locals that are found to have associated with you are liable to come under suspicion and suffer repercussions. (To get an idea of some of the mechanisms involved, search for the phrase public records in China, then click on the top link.)

So the upshot is that you would probably just have to leave the country, but your local associates may be permanently screwed. Congratulations on the results from your courageous stand.

Jeremy Goldkorn on the Sinica podcast once compared the situation to an anaconda in a chandelier that reaches down at unpredictable intervals and snatches up problematic people in the ballroom below. Just because it hasn't grabbed someone yet doesn't mean it won't.

I ask you to consider the possibility that you are being foolhardy and are toying with forces that you do not fully understand. Furthermore, you are placing others at risk. I suggest that you stop.

Right, it's a difficult balancing act: too much trolling degrades the quality of conversation, but too much moderation can suck the life out of things. Hmm... Maybe there could be an Octagon-type thread into which the moderators would shunt flame wars for those who wish to participate or spectate -- sort of the equivalent of a bartender saying "Take it outside."

@ASatiricalBloke:

"It started out as a vibrant meeting place of the minds for expats..."

"Then came the dark ages of censorship..."

The following thread shows some background for the current situation on GoKunming's forums. It wasn't all daisies and unicorns back in the day.

www.gokunming.com/[...]

I think that the forums have greatly improved since then. Which is not to say that I don't occasionally miss the entertainment of Dudesons and Napoleon flaming each other for weeks on end.